BRITISH, COLONIAL AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 475 



regarded as a deliberate intention on the part of United States fish- 

 ermen to aid and assist the subjects of His Majesty in evading or 

 violating the statute law of the colony, namely, cap. 129, Consoli- 

 dated Statutes, and regulations made thereunder, and His Majesty's 

 Government were moved to notify the United States Government 

 that should the violation be attempted the government of this colony 

 would take all proper steps to prevent the same. On the following 

 day a cable was transmitted to the Secretary of State in support of 

 the position set up in the despatch of the previous day, and wherein 

 it was contended 



1. That the government of this colony has complete authority in 

 its own territory to carry out the Bait and Foreign Fishing Vessels 

 Acts. 



2. That the Foreign Fishing Vessels Act stipulates that any at- 

 tempt " to engage any person to form part of the crew of the said 

 vessel in any outport or on any part of the coasts of this island " 

 shall subject the vessel to forfeiture. 



3. That the employment, therefore, of the fishermen of this colony 

 in catching herrings at Bay of Islands for Americans would be a 

 violation of section 1 of said act. 



4. That the said act further provides that no foreign fishing vessel 

 shall enter the waters of this colony " for any purpose not permitted 

 by treaty or convention for the time being in force." 



5. That the employing, shipping, or hiring of the people of this 

 colony by the United States fishing vessels for the purpose aforesaid 

 is not permitted by treaty, and therefore amounts to a violation of 

 the paragraph above quoted. 



6. That the privileges granted to the United States under the Treaty 

 of 1818 were to the inhabitants of that country alone, and the people 

 of this colony who proceed outside the 3-mile limit and engage or 

 hire themselves to catch herring for United States vessels are not 

 ~bona fide inhabitants of the United States and therefore are not priv- 

 ileged by the Convention of 1818, nor does the mere hiring of them- 

 selves to the United States citizens exempt them from the penalties 

 to be imposed upon British subjects for a violation of the law of this 

 colony. 



7. That the catching of herrings by men so engaged would be a 

 clear violation of the Bait Act, which had been in force for many 

 years, and they concluded this despatch by reiterating that, while 

 out of deference to the desire expressed by His Majesty's Government 

 that all possible cause of irritation and friction with the United 

 States might be avoided, they felt that the daily violations of the laws 

 of the colony by United States citizens, then in the harbours of the 

 treaty coast, could not be longer permitted without the demoraliza- 

 tion of the civil service of the colony and the engendering of disre- 

 spect on the part of the people of the colony for all constituted 

 authority. 



After the fishing season of 1905 had closed and the Americans had 

 been permitted to do as they pleased, the correctness of this position, 

 it will be found on reference to the correspondence tabled, was upheld 

 by His Majesty's Government (see despatch. Foreign Office to the 

 United States ambassador, of February 2, 1906) and was concurred 

 in by the American Government, as will be seen on reference to the 

 enclosure in Sir Mortimer Durand's despatch to Sir Edward Grey, 



